By KATHY NUSSBERGER

Managing editor

Shortly before 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, the Boundary County Sheriff's dispatch received an emergency call for an ambulance due to a farming accident in the Highland Flats area near Naples.

Property owner Lowell Carlson said he looked out and noticed that the tractor was stopped and tilted to the side, but that his friend Eric Fredrickson, was no where to be seen.

"I went looking for Eric and found him lying face down in the dirt and unconscious," Carlson explained. "As I tried to get his face out of the dirt, he began fighting me, so I ran inside and called for the ambulance."

Boundary County Chief Deputy Sheriff Rich Stephens, added that Fredrickson had several bumps, bruises and abrasions.

"He was transported to Boundary Community Hospital by ambulance personnel," Stephens said. "It appears that he was possibly knocked off by a tree branch before the tractor went into a pond quite a ways away from where he was found. According to a hospital spokesperson late Tuesday, Fredrickson was still at Boundary Hospital.